November iS, 1896.] 



Garden and Forest. 



461 



GARDEN AND FOREST. 



PUBLISHED WEEKLY BY 



THE GARDEN AND FOREST PUBLISHING CO. 



Office: Tribune Building, New York. 



Conducted by 



Professor C. S. Sargent. 



ENTERED AS SECOND-CLASS MATTER AT THE POST-OFFICE AT NEW YORK, N. V. 



NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 18, 1896. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



Editorial Articles : — Variety Tests in the Experiment Stations 461 



Artistic Supervision for Public Works 461 



Lawn-infesting Insects 462 



Conifers on the Grounds of the Kansas Agricultural College. — II. 



F. C Sears. 462 



Notes on a Trip to the Dismal Swamp Charles Louis Pollard. 462 



Entomological: — Lawn and Grass Infesting Insects. — I. (With figures.) 



Professor J. B. Smith. 463 



New or Little-known Plants: — Aster infirmus. (With figure.). C. E. F. 464 



Cultural Department : — Bud Variation of the Concord Grape. ...//*. Pad. lock. 464 



Carnation Notes IV. N. Craig. 466 



Garden Notes IF. E. Enrlicott. 466 



Indoor Work IV. H. Tafilin. 467 



Autumn Snowdrops y. N. Gerard. 467 



Correspondence : — Apple-twig Blight .F. C. Sears. 467 



Exhibitions : — Chrysanthemums in Philadelphia 468 



Chrysanthemums in Boston 468 



Recent Publications 469 



Notes . -_ 470 



Ilt ust^ations : — Lawn and Grass Infesting Insects 463, 464 



Aster infirmus. Fig. 65 465 



Variety Tests in the Experiment Stations. 



WE have more than once expressed the opinion that 

 the work of our experiment stations in testing dif- 

 ferent varieties of fruits or vegetables is largely wasted. 

 We do not mean by this that such tests have no value, but 

 we feel that the trained investigators who have been 

 organized in every state can use their time and talents to 

 better advantage in establishing broad principles as the 

 basis of farm and garden practice than they can in busy- 

 ing themselves with questions of such simple and elemen- 

 tary character that the farmers and gardeners can work 

 them out without the aid of experts. One reason for the 

 existence of experiment stations is that there are many 

 problems which can only be successfully attacked by men 

 of wide scientific knowledge who have been trained to 

 accurate habits of research and generalization. Such in- 

 vestigations are costly, for the experiments often require 

 expensive material and instruments which only educated 

 men can use to advantage, and many of them need to be 

 conducted through a long series of years before trustwor- 

 thy results can be reached. This work is not only outside 

 of the capacity of the individual farmer, but of farmers' 

 clubs and horticultural societies. There is more than 

 enough of this kind of research to absorb all the energy 

 of the station workers, and it is a loss to the farming com- 

 munity when the limited number of skilled experimenters 

 are taken away from these studies which they alone are 

 able to prosecute successfully, and which are of such para- 

 mount importance. Any one can plant a dozen different 

 varieties of Peas and keep a record of the dates on which 

 they ripen, so as to find which is the earliest ; any one can 

 weigh the product of a dozen varieties of Strawberries and 

 see which one is the most productive and which one has 

 the longest bearing season. Perhaps in new states where 

 there are unknown climatic conditions, with no experience 

 in raising crops either in farm or garden to fall back upon, 

 it is worth while for the stations to begin in this primary 

 way. But when the bright young experimenters in our 

 various stations grow old in the service and look back on 

 the work of their lives they will hardly be satisfied if this 

 has been confined or largely devoted to testing tomatoes. 



Of course, we are assuming that these tests of varieties 

 are trustworthy. But, in fact, with many fruits and vege- 

 tables the results in one place are not true for another. 

 But even when these are carried out in a systematic man- 

 ner, with uniformity of conditions, so far as soil, seed, etc., 

 are concerned, the experimenter confronts the fact that the 

 weather is quite outside of his control. Now, it often hap- 

 pens that a particular season not only affects the general 

 yield of the apple crop, for example, but it affects different 

 sorts in a different way, and, therefore, a test which does not 

 cover a long series of years under similar conditions is of 

 little use. In a recent number of the Experiment Station 

 Record this fact is brought out in a very clear way. It is there 

 stated that the test of varietiesof WheatorCorn, which covers 

 only one or two seasons, does not prove with any certainty 

 the relative adaptability of the varieties tested, even to a 

 particular locality. This adaptability must be based on 

 the average climate of the place, and such an average can 

 only be secured by taking a number of consecutive sea- 

 sons into account. The Illinois station not long ago pub- 

 lished certain data regarding the tests with varieties of 

 Corn during eight years, which make this point clear. Nine 

 varieties were tried continuously, and a table in which the 

 varieties are ranked according to the yield of shelled corn 

 shows that the two varieties which stood lowest on the list 

 the first year occupied the third and fourth place respec- 

 tively when an average of the whole period was taken. 

 The variety Learning stands No. I on the list for the eight 

 years taken together, and yet one year it stood near the 

 bottom. One year Riley's Favorite and Golden Beauty 

 ranked respectively first and second, but in the total aver- 

 age they stand last. Now, if we look over the records of 

 the different stations where varieties of grains, fruits and 

 vegetables have been largely tested, we will observe that 

 these are not planted and tried every year, but disappear 

 and reappear in the trials for different years without any 

 apparent reason. This means that, even for the particular 

 plot of ground in which it is tried in this fashion, we have 

 no way of forming an accurate idea of the qualities of a 

 given variety for an average season, while the results give 

 no information whatever as to the adaptability of the 

 variety to another section in any season. 



These Illinois Wheat tests show one thing, and that is 

 that the comparative behavior of different varieties for one 

 season is no criterion for their probable relative behavior 

 in the same place another year. This is a fact worth 

 knowing, but it has been so thoroughly demonstrated that 

 there is little need of proving it over again, and on the 

 whole it is our opinion that the results of these tests are not 

 worth what they cost. The experiment stations have 

 established a great many truths in regard to dairy prac- 

 tice, to the feeding of animals for various purposes, to the 

 methods of checking insect ravages and plant diseases, 

 and in these and other ways they have already paid for 

 themselves over and over again, but we do not recall any 

 single benefit to cultivators that has come from even the 

 most carefully conducted experiment with varieties of fruits 

 or vegetables. We should be very grateful if some station 

 director would point out definite instances in which work 

 in this direction has proved of any great value. When we 

 consider the time and money that have been spent in this 

 way the present and prospective results ought to have some 

 importance. Certainly, if the views in The Record are 

 correct the methods ought to be changed, and it is a ques- 

 tion worth discussing whether the practice should not be 

 abandoned altogether. 



The value of commission experts in our cities, to whose 

 decision artistic and esthetic matters can be referred, has 

 lately been demonstrated in Boston by the refusal of the 

 Art Commission of that city to allow an inappropriate 

 statue to be placed in the court-yard of the Public Library. 

 It seems possible that the functions of such commissions 

 can be usefully extended over a wider and more important 



